#crabeater seal

[totheark]

3-13-2012

[sealsdaily]

Today's Seals Are: Bringers Of Espionage

[robot-pup]

The teeth of a crabeater seal

Specially evolved for sieving krill & small crustaceans out of the seawater! These highly adapted seals are the most abundant species of pinniped on the planet.

[du-buk]

🔥 🔥💯🦭

[feather-bone]

Crabeater seal! It eats krill. :-)

[ID: an illustration of a dappled grey seal with toothed teeth. It floats vertically, smiling open-mouthed, in blue water surrounded by a cloud of tiny, coral pink and white krill, stylized as brushstrokes. end.]

[eddieintheocean]

i havent actually made a post for april fools so here goes

this seal eats crabs :)

[marinememes]

“Crabeater seals do not actually eat crabs” THEN WHAT DO THEY DO, HUH?

[willowwormwood]

The next selkie design for Selkie Summer, the crabeater seal (selkie)!

Here's your seal fun fact:

Crabeater seals do not, in fact, eat crabs! Ironically other kinds of seals do eat crabs, but not crabeater seals. (Source)

I love crabeater seals because look at that smile. They're adorable. Also they have really cool teeth!

Character design process below the cut:

After looking at photos of crabeater seals I knew I'd want to give her a soft smile and eyes to match the expressions. I also noticed in some of the photos that the seals had scars across their bodies. I hadn't considered to add scars to the designs yet, so I figured now was as good a time as any to include it!

Crabeater seals are one of the bigger seal species, so I knew she would be tall, but beyond that didn't have much to go on. I decided to look up areas crabeater seals live around as a starting point for research. It was trickier since they live across such a wide range, found across Antartica and pretty much the southern edges of any continent close enough to the south pole, found in places like New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, and Argentina. It came down to just picking an area, so I decided to go with New Zealand. While searching through notable people I looked into the Māori in particular, since I just happened to already know they're an indigenous group of New Zealand, and also came across the women's rugby team players who became my main focus for portrait drawing practice.

In the end I was pretty happy with the character's design, even though the fur coat on the crabeater seal may not stand out very much I think I did a good job balancing the design with interesting elements like the scars. I also really like how her facial features and expression turned out, I think I captured the soft easygoing look I was going for.

[hometoursandotherstuff]

[sealsdaily]

Today's Seal Is: Scouring for Crabs

[sitting-on-me-bum]

Crabeater seal at Palmer Station

A crabeater seal lounging at Palmer Station, Antarctica. Despite their name, crabeater seals only eat Antarctic krill and use their specially shaped teeth to filter out the seawater.

Credit: Mike Lucibella/NSF

[fluffywolfboyy]

Info about seals!

There are a lot of species I put - hence the read more. If I've missed any that you want me to add lmk /gen

This post used to have wayyy more links, and had the Baikal seal and the Antarctic Fur seal, but tumblr wouldn't let me post it without deleting stuff T-T

I hope you find this useful and if you do end up reading through some of these links let me know your favourite fact! /nf

Links to videos are highlighted in red

Ribbon

NOAA Fisheries

Seal Conservation Society

MarineBio

Alaska Department of Fish and Game <- This is a PDF

Animalia

Harp

NOAA Fisheries

Seal Conservation Society

MarineBio

Ocean Conservancy

Fisheries and Oceans Canada

NAMMCO

NatGeo - The Big Freeze

BBC

Northern Elephant

NOAA Fisheries

Marine Mammal Centre

MarineBio

Palomar Films

Southern Elephant

ASOC

Seal Conservation Society

MarineBio

Real Science

Harbour/Common

NOAA Fisheries

Seal Conservation Society

MarineBio

Scottish Wildlife Trust

Seal Sitters

NAMMCO

Alaska Department of Fish and Game

Grey

NOAA Fisheries

Seal Conservation Society

MarineBio

NAMMCO

Ringed

NOAA Fisheries

Seal Conservation Society

MarineBio

Centre for Biological Diversity

NAMMCO

Leopard

ASOC

MarineBio

Leopard Seals

Seal Conservation Society

Crabeater

ASOC

MarineBio

Seal Conservation Society

Australian Antarctic Program

Weddell

ASOC

MarineBio

Australian Antarctic Program

Spotted

NOAA Fisheries

Seal Conservation Society

MarineBio

Animalia

Centre for Biological Diversity

Alaska Department of Fish and Game <- This is a PDF

Ross

ASOC

Seal Conservation Society

Australian Antarctic Program

Animalia

Animal Diversity Web

Caspian

Seal Conservation Society

Caspian Seal Project

MMPATF

Animalia

'Caspian Seal' The scientific and educational film

Hooded

NOAA Fisheries

Seal Conservation Society

MarineBio

MarLIN

Whale and Dolphin Conservation

NAMMCO

NatGeo - World's Weirdest

Hawaiian Monk

NOAA Fisheries

Marine Mammal Centre

MarineBio

National Wildlife Federation

State of Hawai'i Division of Aquatic Resources

Marine Mammal Commission

Centre for Biological Diversity

Mediterranean Monk

NOAA Fisheries

MarineBio

Marine Mammal Commission

Animalia

Project Manaia

Bearded

NOAA Fisheries

Seal Conservation Society

MarLIN

Alaska Department of Fish and Game

Centre for Biological Diversity

NAMMCO

[beautifulelephantsealsunrise]

Ok another question. Can u rank best seal teeths for me ? Very curious !

ohh cool i've never considered this question before!! seal teeth are pretty interesting, it turns out. seals are born with teeth, unlike most mammals, and they usually have 34-38 teeth, depending on the species. here's my ranking of the top five types of seal teeth.

crabeater seal teeth

these things have to be number one simply because they're cool as fuck. despite its name, the crabeater seal doesn't actually eat crabs. instead, it uses its specialized teeth to filter krill out of the water, just like whales!

2. elephant seal teeth

they're nothing fancy like the crabeater seal teeth, but they have to be big and strong since elephant seals use them to fight. plus I think it's so funny how they just look like two little points when an elephant seal opens its mouth.

3. leopard seal teeth

these look a little like crabeater seal teeth, right? leopard seals eat krill too, but also fish, squid, penguins, and even smaller seals! their teeth look very sharp and pointy. leopard seal probably ranks #1 on my list of seals I would least like to be bitten by.

4. harbor seal teeth

I like how they're so uniform and neat. politely sharp little points. this harbor seal is getting its teeth brushed! harbor seals don't use their teeth for chewing -- they're mostly used to get a good grip on fish, which they will then swallow whole.

5. harp seal teeth

delicate and beautiful. need I say more? the harp seal eats many different fish and ocean invertebrates.

plus: bonus pic of a harbor seal showing off its tongue! seals have bifurcated (forked) tongues. this is because they are beasts of the devil.

[holo-pics]

crabeater seals

[holopics]

crabeater seal

[bog-goblin]

Bestie, I hate to be the one to tell you this, but this species doesn't actually eat crabs. The name is a farce.... bamboozling, I know...

This species is actually a filter-feeder that munches on krill! This special shape of teeth help them strain water while feeding! It may not be the most intuitive name, but they're super cool animals nonetheless!